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Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong - Again
Two weeks ago I surprised some of you with the news that as I understand it, saturated fat is not entirely the bad guy it’s made out to be.
Today I want to try and clear up the confusion about what really is and isn’t good for us – as I understand it, based on my readings.
In spite of “conventional wisdom”, (which really means “what the media tells us”) when you look at the evidence, dietary fat appears not to be a cause of obesity, heart disease or other chronic illness of Western civilization.
The culprit seems to be refined carbohydrates, a relatively new type of food for human beings, only consumed in quantity since the agricultural revolution. The real explosion of our consumption of highly refined sugar seems to have taken place largely since the beginning of the 20th Century, when people began consuming new things entirely, such as fizzy drinks, full of sugar. Tracking this explosion, came the explosion of “diseases of civilization” – tooth decay, cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease, obesity, and more.
The most dramatic change in the human diet over our history is the introduction of carbohydrates in large quantities; the increasing refinement of those sugars which leads to rapid absorption into the body; and the dramatic increase in sugar consumption largely due to the habit of drinking soft drinks, which is responsible for raising our consumption of sugar from less than ten or twenty pounds a year per person in the mid 19th Century to approximately 150 pounds today.
The body seems not to be able to handle such refined carbohydrates in such quantities. The body systems that are in the front line of the overload are the insulin system and the liver.
The knock on effects, however, can involve far more of the body. Heart disease and diabetes. Then, cancer, Alzheimers, and other chronic diseases of our civilization.
It also appears that getting fat is not caused by eating too much or exercising too little – it is caused by too much fat storage and too little fat mobilization, which is due to unbalanced hormonal regulation, the hormones responsible being insulin, amongst others.
When insulin levels are too high we store fat. Carbohydrates of the wrong kinds (refined sugars, flours, fizzy drinks etc.) raise insulin levels. Carbohydrates of the right kind (certain fruits in moderation, non-starchy vegetables) appear not to do this, and in addition provide a lot of much-needed nutrition.
To your health –
Hannes Dreyer
Two weeks ago I surprised some of you with the news that as I understand it, saturated fat is not entirely the bad guy it’s made out to be.
Today I want to try and clear up the confusion about what really is and isn’t good for us – as I understand it, based on my readings.
In spite of “conventional wisdom”, (which really means “what the media tells us”) when you look at the evidence, dietary fat appears not to be a cause of obesity, heart disease or other chronic illness of Western civilization.
The culprit seems to be refined carbohydrates, a relatively new type of food for human beings, only consumed in quantity since the agricultural revolution. The real explosion of our consumption of highly refined sugar seems to have taken place largely since the beginning of the 20th Century, when people began consuming new things entirely, such as fizzy drinks, full of sugar. Tracking this explosion, came the explosion of “diseases of civilization” – tooth decay, cancers, rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease, obesity, and more.
The most dramatic change in the human diet over our history is the introduction of carbohydrates in large quantities; the increasing refinement of those sugars which leads to rapid absorption into the body; and the dramatic increase in sugar consumption largely due to the habit of drinking soft drinks, which is responsible for raising our consumption of sugar from less than ten or twenty pounds a year per person in the mid 19th Century to approximately 150 pounds today.
The body seems not to be able to handle such refined carbohydrates in such quantities. The body systems that are in the front line of the overload are the insulin system and the liver.
The knock on effects, however, can involve far more of the body. Heart disease and diabetes. Then, cancer, Alzheimers, and other chronic diseases of our civilization.
It also appears that getting fat is not caused by eating too much or exercising too little – it is caused by too much fat storage and too little fat mobilization, which is due to unbalanced hormonal regulation, the hormones responsible being insulin, amongst others.
When insulin levels are too high we store fat. Carbohydrates of the wrong kinds (refined sugars, flours, fizzy drinks etc.) raise insulin levels. Carbohydrates of the right kind (certain fruits in moderation, non-starchy vegetables) appear not to do this, and in addition provide a lot of much-needed nutrition.
To your health –
Hannes Dreyer
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